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Friday, August 16, 2013

The row over Modi's visa is a needless controversy

The report that a US forensic expert
has authenticated the signatures of 65 Members of Parliament who had
written to President Barack Obama to deny a visa to Gujarat chief
minister Narendra Modi is the latest development in a needless
controversy. At one
level it is reveals the battle lines of the coming general elections. At
another, it tells us that there will be no holds barred in the
campaign. Naturally,
the stakes are high for all those who will be in the contest, but they
are immeasurably higher for the Bharatiya Janata Party which lost the
2004 and 2009 elections. A loss in the 2014 elections could well become a
KO.

Oddity

Given the focus on the 2014 elections, Narendra Modi is surely too busy to visit America anyway

So far, this year at least, the
stepping of the party and its mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has
been faultless. They have managed to get their most energetic and
charismatic figure Narendra Modi to the centre-stage as the BJP's
election campaign chief, a promotion that will almost certainly see him
as the declared or undeclared candidate of the party for the post of
prime minister in the 2014 general elections. The
visa controversy is a bit of an oddity here. Both those who are seeking
a visa for Mr Modi, and those who are opposing it, are way over the top
in pursuing the issue. Given the momentum towards elections, Mr Modi is
unlikely to go gallivanting to the United States in the coming months.
On the other hand, if he does become prime minister, the US is unlikely
to deny him a visa. Indeed,
given what the US says about the centrality of India to Asian
geopolitics, the Americans are more likely to lay out the red carpet for
him. This is more so because he is perceived to be an economic liberal,
rather than the closet socialists that the UPA turned out to be. Even
so it was unseemly for BJP president Rajnath Singh to declare at a press
conference in the US that he would "appeal to the US government to
clear US visa to the Gujarat CM." Though
it would be unfair to heap the entire blame on Singh. He was merely
reacting to what he felt was the enormous pressure that is being put on
the issue on behalf of Modi by NRI organisations, mainly of Gujaratis,
who have proved to be the most fervent Modi supporters. Equally
it is not right for MPs to petition a foreign government to deny a visa
to an Indian national. In any case, the right to grant or reject a visa
application is jealously guarded by states as an attribute of their
sovereignty.

Lobbying

While the fact of lobbying is not unusual in the US, it is definitely
inappropriate for Indian parliamentarians to participate in the process.
It manifests a low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. Subsequently,
many of the MPs, including Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) denied that
they had signed the petition. And now, the forensic expert suggests that
they are being somewhat economical with the truth. When
the US denied Mr Modi a diplomatic visa in 2005 on the eve of his visit
to the US, the wounds of Gujarat were still fresh. The US embassy said
that it acted as per a section of the US Immigration and Nationality
Act, which prohibits anybody who was 'responsible for, or directly
carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious
freedom' from entering the US. They also revoked an existing B1/B2 visa
that had been granted earlier.

Since then, while Mr Modi says that
he has not applied for a visa, the issue has come up often, with groups
of US lawmakers arrayed on both sides of the controversy. Now,
the situation is different. Though many believe that he should accept
moral responsibility for what happened in his watch as the chief
minister, legally he is clear since various investigations into the
Gujarat pogrom have taken place and Mr Modi has not been personally
indicted in any of them. So
it was not surprising that the US reaction to the visa controversy was
to say that if Mr Modi applied again, his application would be
"considered to determine whether he qualifies for a visa, in accordance
with US immigration law and policy".

Hypocrisy

Over the years, the US has welcomed many a leader who has violated
religious freedom. We can think of the successive Chinese leaders who
prevent the free practice of religion in China, or the many Pakistani
leaders who are party to a system which marginalizes Shia Muslims,
Hindus and Ahmadis.
International politics rather than law or policy will also play a key
role in a future Modi visit to the US. There is certainly an element of
the hyperbole in Obama's declaration that the American relationship with
India is "a defining partnership of the century ahead" . But it
contains more than a grain of truth. For
the US an economically and militarily strong India offers the biggest
counter-weight to the inexorable rise of China. India by itself cannot
offset China, but the equation looks different when it is combined with
the strengths of Japan, Southeast Asia and Australia, and America's own
considerable capacities. Earlier
this year, envoys of various European countries met him in New Delhi.
Last year, the UK High Commissioner James Bevan to New Delhi met him in a
highly publicized meeting in Gandhinagar. In 2011, the US Ambassador
Timothy Roemer travelled to Gujarat, a state that had been off limits
for US envoys since 2002. However he did not meet Modi at that time. So,
at the end of the day, what will matter is realpolitik: If Mr Modi and
his party win the election, they will be welcomed by the US. Mail Today July 31, 2013